Sunday, March 10 FIRST SUNDAY OF THE GREAT FAST
8:30 AM God’s Blessings and Good Health for all Parishioners

FORGIVENESS SUNDAY: Please try to attend the Forgiveness Vespers this Sunday, March 3, 2019 at Transfiguration of Our Lord Parish, Nanticoke, PA at 4:00 PM. All parishes are invited to attend this service. A light Friendship Social will follow.

SUNDAY, MARCH 3 IS ALSO CALLED FORGIVENESS SUNDAY
Forgiveness of Sins
The forgiveness of sins can be viewed from many different aspects. The spirituality of the West tends to accentuate man’s activity in receiving the sacraments, performing
good works and believing in Christ. These are all part of the total response; but Byzantine spirituality has the peculiar emphasis of seeing the forgiveness of sins effected through praise of God. Christ’s act of love in His passion and resurrection is a victory over the forces of evil and over sin itself. We share in this victory when we acknowledge it and praise the Victor. We actually enter into the Kingdom as we recognize Him, in praise, to be the source of our sanctification, and we participate in His glory and holiness when joyful praise cleanses our hearts while celebrating His victory:
We beg forgiveness for our stumbling, Christ God; because you chose, of your own free will, to ascend upon the cross in the flesh in order to deliver from the enemy’s yoke those you had created. For this reason we cry out to you in thanksgiving: ‘You our Savior have filled all things with joy when you came to save the world.’ (Feast of the Ikon of Christ)
Sts. Basil and Chrysostom and many other Fathers of the Church often repeat that one of the effects of praising God is to “forgive sins” “purify the soul,” “bring down the grace of God.” St. Cyril of Jerusalem insists that “by our spiritual hymns our sins are forgiven, and we sanctify ourselves.” St. Basil says “when the day is breaking (his community) sings together with one mouth and one heart the psalm of confession (Ps. 51) to the Lord, each making his own the words of repentance and thus having his sins forgiven him.” St. John Chrysostom explains, “Psalm 141 has the effect of purifying a soul and forgiving sins. This evening psalm is a medicine that removes all defilement of sin. By stirring up the soul it enkindles a desire for God. Once the soul has burst into flame and overflows with joy and love, sins are removed and forgiven. Where there is love, every evil vanishes from the soul. When God is thus remembered, sins are forgiven and evil destroyed.” Confession, therefore, is not only an acknowledgement of man’s misery and of his need for help, it is also (and perhaps more so) a joyful proclamation of God’s saving goodness; it is an act of worship:
My heart is ready, O God, My heart is ready! I will sing and play. Awake my glory! Awake lute and lyre,
I mean to wake the dawn. (Ps. 57:8)

SUNDAY OF CHEESEFARE
MARCH 3, 2019

Today we stand at the threshold of the Holy Great Fast, ready to enter with faith and joy. We also sit at the threshold of paradise with Adam and lament what we have lost. Today we again hear our story; the story of our creation by God, the story of life that is breathed into us by the Holy Spirit. This is our dignity; this is our nobility; this is why we are to respect life. For life is a gift from God, being created in His image and likeness.
Now Satan enters the scene and sets his snare. He tricks mankind, Adam and Eve, into disobedience by fooling them to believe God is lying to them. Satan promises them equality with God.
But this is the trick! This is the insidious part of the whole scheme! They already share a deep communion with God; however, by following Satan’s deceitful design to gain something even greater, they lose what they have. This is the deceptive guise of sin. It promises us something that seems so beneficial; but when we say yes to sin, suddenly it tears off its mask and reveals its ugly face to us. Then in a moment, we know in the depths of our being that we have been duped. We have been tricked! We all know the queasy feeling in the pit of our stomach when we face this realization.
Then together with Adam, we sit and lament. We too by our sin have given up our God-woven robes; we have lost the delights of paradise. We too now live not in communion but in brokenness.
The final elements necessary for repentance are presented today: fasting and forgiveness. We seek to regain our communion with God, and Christ is our Way. We come to join the New Adam, Christ, and undo what we have done with the Old Adam. Adam failed to fast from the tree and thus lost Paradise; we therefore fast in order to regain it. But even more than fasting, even more than almsgiving and prayer, the Gospels give us another way to enter into communion with God. This is through forgiveness. As our holy father St. John Chrysostom says: “Nothing makes us so like God as being ready to forgive the wicked and wrongdoers.” Only when we have crossed this threshold are we ready to enter the Fast in the proper spirit and seek forgiveness from our heavenly Father, and this threshold is The Forgiveness Vespers held tonight at 4 pm at Transfiguration of Our Lord at 4 PM for our deanery.

FIRST DAY OF THE GREAT FAST: In the Ukrainian Church, Lent begins at sundown Sunday, March 3rd. The first day of The Great Fast and Good Friday are days of strict abstinence – we refrain from eating any meat or dairy products all day long, and we should try to limit our consumption of food. All Fridays during The Great Fast are days of mandatory abstinence from all meat products. Wednesdays are also suggested as days of voluntary abstinence from meat products. Our fasting regulations are optional only for persons older than 59 and younger than 7. Everyone else is obliged to follow the rules of abstinence of our Church. The early Christians were extremely rigid in fasting. Many of them abstained from food until night and on some day’s bread and water were the only meals allowed to them. The Eastern Church presents to her faithful on this
Sunday the main means for improving their lives with the tools Jesus left us, namely; PRAYER, FASTING, AND ALMS GIVING

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DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

Next Sunday, Mach 10th at 2:00 AM is time to set our clocks forward 1 hour.
Why is there Daylight Saving Time?
Here is a short history of this phenomenon.

Credit for Daylight Saving Time is often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, who suggested the idea in 1784 as a joke. British born New Zealander George
Hudson proposed the concept in 1885 but was ridiculed. The idea was revived in 1902, when William Willett, and Englishman, proposed a system in the pamphlet The Waste of Daylight.
The Germans were the first to officially adopt the light-extending system in 1915 as a fuel saving measure during World War 1. The British switched one year later and the United States followed in 1918, when Congress passed the Standard Time Act, which established our time zones. This experiment lasted only until 1920, when the law was repealed due to opposition from dairy farmers (cows don’t pay attention to clocks.
During World War 11 Daylight Saving Time was imposed once again (this time year round) to save fuel. Since then, Daylight Saving Time has been used on and off, with different start and end dates. Currently, Daylight Saving Time begins at 2:00 am on the second Sunday of March and ends at 2:00 am on the first Sunday in November.

Time
In spring when maple buds are red, We turn the clock an hour ahead; Which means, each April that arrives, We lose an hour out of our lives. Who cares? When autumn birds in flocks Fly southward, back we turn the clocks, And so regain a lovely thing That missing hour we lost in spring.

SANCTUARY LIGHT: The Sanctuary Light has no request.

WOMEN’S SOCIETY: The monthly meeting of the Women’s Society will convene Tuesday, March 12th at 6:30 PM in the church hall. All members are urged to attend. This is the first meeting after the winter recess. Plans will be discussed for the upcoming events.

LUC’s Springtime Bus Trip – North Anthracite Council’s chartered bus to New York City on Saturday, May 18, 2019 is filling up quickly. Only 12 seats remain open on the 55 passenger Martz bus, therefore make your reservation now in order to avoid disappointment. Itinerary includes Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach and St. George Ukrainian Street Festival on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The bus will pick up at 8:00am at Edwardsville’s St. Vladimir Church, 70 Zerby Avenue and at 8:45am at Scranton’s St. Vladimir Church, 428 North Seventh Avenue with departure for home at 8:00pm. Cost is $45.00. For additional information and reservations contact Janina Everett or Paul Ewasko.